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The Stone Reader (2003)
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Reviews Counted:22
Fresh:18
Rotten:4
Average Rating:7.3/10
Consensus: This fascinating documentary will be of most interest to those who read and write for a living.
Theatrical Release:Feb 12, 2003 Limited
Synopsis: In this labor-of-love documentary, director-writer-producer Mark Moskowitz tackles a project he had been wanting to pursue since he was 18 years old. In 1972 he read a New York Times book review of... In this labor-of-love documentary, director-writer-producer Mark Moskowitz tackles a project he had been wanting to pursue since he was 18 years old. In 1972 he read a New York Times book review of THE STONES OF SUMMER by Dow Mossman, a title which would later became an object of obsession for Moskowitz. Though he shelved the book for 25 years, Moskowitz finally did read it and was amazed at its ingenuity. He was shocked that its onetime author never penned another book. Determined to solve this mystery, Moskowitz made THE STONE READER, documenting his research project in finding the forgotten author and getting to the bottom of the publishing mystery of how so many great works of literature, and great authors, just disappear. Moskowitz's infectious excitement about literature--reading it, collecting it, understanding it, enjoying it--comes through loud and clear in this inspiring film. He interviews some fascinating characters on his search for Mossman, including Frank Conroy, an author and the head of the Iowa University Writer's Workshop; Robert Gottlieb, the editor of Joseph Heller's CATCH 22 and former Editor-in-Chief at Simon & Schuster; and Leslie Fiedler, a literary critic and author of LOVE AND DEATH IN THE AMERICAN NOVEL. [More]
Director: Mark Moskowitz
Director: Mark Moskowitz
Screenwriter: Mark Moskowitz
Producer: Mark Moskowitz, Robert Goodman
Studio: Jet Films
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Reviews for The Stone Reader
You're not likely to see a more impassioned and heartfelt tribute to the joy of reading.
It's an intimate look at the gears inside one person's head and a study of how an obsession, when handled judiciously, can be enlightening.
Moskowitz has made a wonderful film about readers and reading, writers and writing.
Moskowitz may soon find himself in the same boat as many of the artists he is analyzing, because Stone Reader is going to be one tough act to follow.
It's a tribute to the transforming power of reading and a reminder of the Sisyphean task that reading can be.
For a film that's obsessed with a book, it's amazing how little we learn about it. Nevertheless, we walk out of the theater longing to get our hands on it.
Enormously affectionate, gloriously self-indulgent and unhesitatingly heroic in its championing of good books.
It should delight anyone who loves to curl up with a book, or loves to tell someone about a book worth curling up with.
The stultifying pace and Moskowitz's filmmaking laziness are forgivable, but it's exasperating and indicative of our low expectations for the documentary form that a film that taps the likes of Leslie Fiedler could be so devoid of ideas.
Both an involving real-life mystery and a passionate romance between a novelist and his ideal reader.
Moskowitz indulgences himself too often at the expense of audience patience.
Filmmaker Mark Moskowitz, who earns a living making political commercials, turns his considerable skills of media persuasion to the nobler service of selling serious books. And with Stone Reader, he makes the sale.
An unalloyed treasure for any viewer who has ever felt transformed by reading a good novel.
What Stone Reader offers that's new is its portrayal of reading not as a supremely civilized and soulful activity but as a lonely, thwarting and sometimes painfully embarrassing one.
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